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The Pneuma Review: As a New Testament scholar you have a great interest in the meaning of the biblical text but you also seem to have a great interest in miracles. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Craig Keener: Some estimate that 31 percent of Mark’s Gospel, or roughly 40 percent of his narrative, addresses miracles. To ignore the question of miracles is to ignore a hefty portion of the biblical text. Perhaps one-fifth of the Book of Acts addresses miracles, almost as much as the speeches, yet scholars often comment on the topic of the “speeches in Acts” while comparatively ignoring the miracles. I think this is a blind spot in our Western readings of the text since David Hume. Since Hume, scholars have often treated the miracle accounts in the Gospels as an embarrassment, neglecting them, explaining them away, allegorizing them in ways we wouldn’t do with most other narratives. Those are culturally circumscribed readings: when someone in the first century heard a healing report of Asclepius, for example, they understood that it was meant to invite faith in Asclepius’s power to help supplicants. Reports that the New Testament writers expected to generate faith are often treated very differently by scholars today, who are often captive to a very different worldview.

PR: How have the arguments of David Hume contributed to anti-supernatural thinking in the West?

David Hume (1711-1776), a historian and philosopher known for his skepticism and empiricism.

Keener: Hume borrowed arguments of some earlier Deists against miracles, and some of the apparent gaps in his arguments are because he is taking some conventional Deist arguments for granted. In his own day, his essay about miracles was overshadowed by other works, especially one by Conyers Middleton. Deism eventually faded from fashion, but Hume’s prestige, based on his other essays, led to his miracles essay being widely influential. Many today do not realize the historic pedigree of their views, but their ready dismissal of the plausibility of miracles simply repeats Hume’s claim.

PR: What is the fallacy in Hume’s thinking?

Keener: There is more than one. Foundational is his argument from uniform human experience. The first part of Hume’s essay appeals to laws of nature, presumably extrapolated from human experience, in a prescriptive way that does not fit current understandings of laws of nature. In Hume’s own era, in fact, most English scientists speaking about laws of nature affirmed the reality of biblical miracles; it was not scientific evidence but Hume’s philosophic argument that eventually led much of culture to reject miracles, often (wrongly) in the name of science.

A third edition of what has become something a classic work in the field of Christian apologetics since its original (1984) and second (1994) versions is well worth the reading (or re-reading). The author insists it has only expansions of content and minor updates rather than any retractions of arguments that didn’t stand up to the test of time. In a word, it still packs quite an intellectual punch. And no wonder. It is the signature book of a very prolific scholar and writer. William Lane Craig is research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology (La Mirada, California) and founder of Reasonable Faith (www.reasonablefaith.org), a web-based apologetics ministry. He has been publically debating with detractors, including the infamous former (subsequently) atheist, Anthony Flew, and defending a Christian worldview against all comers for more than twenty years. He’s especially noted for his unique take on the cosmological argument for God’s existence and also for his philosophy of time and criticisms of the Jesus Seminar movement and postmodernism. He’s authored more than twenty books, about half of which are scholarly in nature with the other half aimed at a more popular audience.

Craig freely admits that Reasonable Faith represents his personal approach to Christian apologetics. Accordingly, he recommends other, supplemental, texts on the history and development of apologetics for readers desiring a well-rounded understanding. Craig understands apologetics (Greek, apologia) to be “that branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for the truth claims of the Christian faith.” Accordingly, apologetics is primarily a theoretical discipline. However, this is not a concession that apologetics is of no practical benefit. Christian apologetics has a major role in shaping culture, strengthening believers, and evangelizing unbelievers. While he distinguishes between offensive or positive and defensive or negative types of apologetics, and affirms the validity of both, he explains that Reasonable Faith is more in the offensive or positive mode. That is, it seeks to present a positive case for Christian truth claims rather than to nullify objections to them.

As one of the most prolific Pentecostal theologians, Amos Yong is no stranger to the science and religion dialogue, although this volume is his first independent monograph dedicated to Pentecostal contributions to the debate. Yong’s previous writings on the topic are distributed across a variety of academic essays and articles and not always readily accessible. The Spirit of Creation assembles a collection of these texts into a deftly argued Pentecostal manifesto that calls Pentecostals out of the dark ages of the pre-modern world. For Yong, Pentecostals have a significant place in the scientific discussions due to their emphasis on the dynamic presence and activity of the Holy Spirit.

Yong’s primary rationale for insisting on the Pentecostal engagement of the sciences (and vice versa) emerges from a reading of the forces of modernization that have enabled the prospering of both the sciences and Pentecostalism. For Yong, it is a mistake to equate Pentecostalism with a pre-modern movement or anti-modern tendencies. Instead, Pentecostals are also impacted by the advance of the scientific worldview and both worlds do not have to be seen in contrast to one another: science and Pentecostalism are different linguistic and cultural outlooks on the natural world that both declare the fullness of God’s truth. For Yong, a withdrawal of Pentecostals from the conversation would damage their credibility not only from the scientific perspective but from the entire viewpoint of the late modern world. In contrast, Yong suggests that the Pentecostal perspective offers a unique contribution to the dialogue of science and theology.

Amos Yong

The book consists of six chapters. Yong begins with a discussion of the Pentecostal encounter with the sciences and the possibility of a Pentecostal contribution. The second chapter approaches the kind of Pentecostal sensibilities Yong has for some time termed the pneumatological imagination: the start with and the engagement of the world from the perspective of the Holy Spirit. This perspective represents for Yong a methodological advantage to engage theology and science. The third chapter proposes a Pentecostal perspective on the Divine Action Project organized by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley, California, and the Vatican Observatory. Yong’s particular proposal suggests that the Pentecostal emphasis on both the Spirit (i.e., pneumatology) and the existence in the last days (i.e., eschatology) can lead to a pneumatological and teleological framework for the explanation of divine action. This framework is developed in chapter four into a model for understanding miracles in a world governed by the laws of nature. Yong’s goal is to speak of divine action in a manner that takes seriously the miraculous without violating the laws of nature. He concludes that the pneumato-eschatological framework necessitates a rethinking of the laws of nature in non-necessitarian terms. Yong’s methodological and theological proposal is examined in chapter 5 as a case study on the cosmic “history” of the world. He adopts and modifies the theory of emergence to include the Spirit of God and re-narrates the standard evolutionary account of the world into a teleological narrative. It is due to the central figure of the Spirit that this cosmogony can be told from both a scientific and theological perspective. The final chapter takes this potential dialogue into a programmatic direction and proposes a pneumatological cosmology that speaks of all creation as filled with the Spirit.

If we want to live our lives according to the Bible, how we approach Scripture means everything. What differences in interpretation can we see between the contemporary Word of Faith movement and the classic Faith movement?

This chapter is from Paul L. King’s book Only Believe: Examining the Origins and Development of Classic and Contemporary Word of Faith Theologies.

Many, perhaps even most, of the controversies regarding contemporary faith theology and practice have involved the interpretation of various passages of Scripture. Regarding the “health and wealth gospel,” Fee affirms: “The basic problems here are hermeneutical, i.e., they involve questions as to how one interprets Scripture. Even the lay person, who may not know the word “hermeneutics’ and who is not especially trained in interpreting the Bible, senses that this is where the real problem lies. The most distressing thing about their use of Scripture … is the purely subjective and arbitrary way they interpret the biblical text.”¹

Hermeneutics and the Contemporary Faith Movement

James W. Sire, in his book Scripture Twisting, addresses ways in which cults misuse the Scriptures: inaccurate quotation, twisted translation, ignoring the immediate context, collapsing contexts of two or more unrelated texts, speculation and overspecification, mistaking literal language for figurative language (and vice versa), selective citing, confused definitions, ignoring alternative explanations, among others.² Many of these misuses of Scripture in the contemporary faith movement have been pointed out by their critics. However, this does not mean that the contemporary faith leaders are cultic as some have claimed them to be, but it does demonstrate that there is a serious problem with some contemporary faith exegesis.

This is nobly said; but what does it mean? Implied is the hint that interpretations that differ from his are based on what people think, not on what the Bible says. But also implied is the truth that good interpretation should begin with the plain meaning of the text. The plain meaning of the text, however, is precisely what Copeland and the others do not give us, text after text. … But “plain meaning” has first of all to do with the author’s original intent, it has to do with what would have been plain to those to whom the words were originally addressed. It has not to do with how someone from a suburbanized white American culture of the late 20th century reads his own cultural setting back into the text through the frequently distorted prism of the language of the early 17th century.⁴

To illustrate Fee’s apprehension, a popular saying in the contemporary faith movement proclaims, “God said it; I believe it; and that settles it.” That statement is true as far as it goes. But it leaves something out: what is it that God really said, and what does it mean? Often this is presumed, rather than thought through and studied exegetically. Lovett, formerly a professor at Oral Roberts University, also writes of his concern, explaining, “The problem with exponents of the Rhema [word of faith] interpretation is their biased selection of biblical passages, often without due regard to their context. The self-defined phrase ‘confessing the Word of God’ takes precedence over hermeneutical principles and rules for biblical interpretation. This approach not only does violence to the text but forces the NT linguistic data into artificial categories that the biblical authors themselves could not affirm.”⁵ Simmons concludes that the shaky hermeneutical foundation of the contemporary faith movement stems from its acknowledged founder: “In Kenyon’s hands, even the texts that were a major focus of Keswickeans in general proved to be remarkably elastic. … Kenyon’s tendency was to stretch a term or metaphor to a literal extreme that the original word or figure of speech did not intend.”⁶

Pentecostalism’s Heritage

Pentecostalism’s formation and development looks to the nineteenth century Holiness Movement for its parentage. Perhaps every generation has looked at the Church they have inherited, compared it with the biblical account of the early Church and pronounced the diagnosis that something fundamental was awry. Certainly, by the late nineteenth century, Evangelicalism was ill at ease with itself and had spawned many agencies seeking to kick start the Church back into life.

In Britain, the Holiness Movement, particularly as mediated through the Keswick Convention, became a significant breeding ground for proto-Pentecostals. The theology surrounding this ecumenical event (its motto was ‘All one in Christ Jesus’) focused on the desire for a victorious Christian life that many of its delegates desired above all else. The answer to this overwhelming desire was to be found in an experience of a life lived in the ‘fullness of the Spirit’. Rejecting the more extreme views of ‘sinless perfection’, the clear expectation was that the believer, once justified by faith, could have a distinct divine experience which would become the gateway into leading a ‘life of overcoming’. This life would then be transformed into service—the work of the Spirit would provide the disciple with power to witness.

For many Evangelicals, convinced of the fact that too often the Church was leading a spiritually substandard life, this was deemed to be the obvious answer. Many early proto-Pentecostals became frequent visitors to the convention in Keswick, returning to their mission halls and prayer meetings having claimed this experience of sanctification by faith. That this was the answer to the problems of the Church was given credibility when the Welsh Revival broke out in 1904. Led by the trio of Holiness revivalists: Seth Joshua, Joseph Jenkins and Evan Roberts, the freewheeling dynamism of the Revival awakened many people’s imaginations to the possibility of a much wider spiritual renewal. The Welsh Revival was to be a significant precursor to Pentecostalism for a number of reasons. Some future Pentecostal leaders were converted in the Revival; others, such as Rev. A. A. Boddy, visited Wales and returned to their home churches having witnessed the radical freedom of the services, believing this to be a hallmark of the Spirit in action. A third reason related to the fact that the post-revival period was marked by small home-groups that delineated themselves as ‘Children of the Revival’. It was amongst these groups that Pentecostalism would break out. They had experienced the freedom of the Revival, were convinced that this was what churches had been missing for years and were not content to return to the formalism of non-conformist churches.

The “conflict” between science and faith within North American evangelicalism continues to rage, unfortunately. This book will no doubt further fan the flames, even if it is intended to shed some light on these matters, largely because it sets out a position defending “theistic evolution” as compatible with evangelical commitments, and detractors of this view are resolutely resistant and aggressively opposed to it. My hunch is that readers of The Pneuma Review who have already made up their minds that evolution is anti-Christian will not find much of value here, and they might even be upset that the editors of this periodical have agreed to review this book. My hope, though, is that those who are genuinely looking to understand the issues will give this very accessible book a fair read. I do not necessarily agree with all of what is in here, but I do think that books like this do raise the literacy of the broader public, and we certainly need more, rather than less, literacy. Pentecostal pastors and church leaders who are concerned about their students and the next generation of pentecostal faith in our thoroughly scientific world need to be equipped to help their church members navigate these waters.

Francis Collins is the world-renowned geneticist who spearheaded the human genome project and Karl Giberson teaches physics at Eastern Nazarene University in Quincy, Massachusetts. Both have written other books on science and faith that have been well received by the wider public. Most important for our purposes is that few, I think, can doubt their evangelical commitments. Yet they are probably among a minority of evangelicals who publicly advocate embracing the consensus of mainstream science, including the neo-Darwinian synthesis, as being consistent with a robust Christian faith. Collins founded The BioLogos Forum (http://biologos.org) in large part to provide a vision for how Christians can not only be at peace with but also support the contemporary scientific enterprise.

Of course, since much of the book emerged from the FAQs on the BioLogos website, the treatments are short, perhaps in some cases, a bit too short for some readers who may be ready for more. Further, I can imagine that some readers will wonder what all the fuss is about within the evangelical world. In many cases, the volume compares and contrast the BioLogos model with alternative positions held by evangelicals, including young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and intelligent design. Those looking for a sort of “four views” point-and-counterpoint will need to keep waiting.

My story starts when I turned awkwardly to look at the new score board in the nearby University Arena, someplace where we have regularly attended various athletic events for the past 17 years. Our current season started in August, and we were there. The announcer was introducing the glorious new score board, and the thousands in attendance all looked at it as the lights came on. I was sitting directly under and somewhat to the side of the new score board, and when I stretched my neck to see it I knew right away I had hurt myself.

That was eight months ago, and I have struggled with my neck and the discomfort it has since presented everyday. I have been to all kinds of doctors and trainers, prayed for relief as have others on my behalf, and while I am somewhat better, I have not had complete deliverance from my woes. I simply hurt all the time, just a dull ache that transverses my shoulders and my neck. The pain never goes totally away.

The discomfort climaxed in January when my wife took me to the ER around 1:00 AM one night. They took some X-rays, gave me an injection of morphine, a prescription for valium, and sent us home where I slept for two weeks. As that season came to an end, I found that I had lost all my leg strength, and that I could not stand. My balance was gone, and I was in danger of falling— I did fall five times.

I weigh more than I should, and more than my wife can lift, so she needed help to get me upright or seated. My wife somehow came up with two men to lift me each time I fell. She followed that up with a wheel chair, then a walker as I started to improve, a chair for the shower and a cane. Now I walk almost like I always did.

My plight meant I needed help for the simplest things, and I watched with gratitude and admiration as my wife assumed the responsibility to provide all I needed. That included getting into the shower with me and washing me. This went on for three or four weeks.

We have been married a long time, and I wondered what I would have done without my bride who took care of me with a tender grace—an expression of care that meant I was important. Jesus told us about the difference between a shepherd and a hireling. I get to talk to people about their lives and marriages, and I have experienced the value of a spouse who cares. We have one daughter who lives on the island near us, and she told me that she thought she was losing her dad, that I was on my deathbed. My wife told me she too believed that I was dying.

God was gracious, and has restored me almost back to where I was before they lit up that scoreboard. While I now expect full restoration, I experienced some significant learning in this incident.

I learned how valuable, wonderful and good it is to have someone who cares for you when you are down, when there is a crisis and you need help. I urge you not to wait until crisis comes, but to begin to express that caring for your spouse starting right now and by so doing, to build a relationship that will reward both of you all day everyday.

At a time where books on the first one hundred years of modern-day Pentecostalism are published with frequency, Alexander reminds us of the important heritage of African American Pentecostals. African and African American origins of classical Pentecostalism remain a neglected topic of study, and even African American Pentecostals often know little of their own heritage. Despite the influence of the black preacher William J. Seymour and other African American leaders on the origins and development of Pentecostalism in North America, few scholars have traced the story of African American Pentecostal origins or developed a comprehensive account of the racial landscape of Pentecostals. The recovery of African American contributions was hindered for many decades by the dominance of two competing theories of Pentecostal beginnings that identified either white or black origins. Interracial origins and the diversity of influences within different racial traditions are only recently becoming a topic of study, and the much larger questions of the relationship of particular racial theories of Pentecostal origins to the racial composition of global Pentecostalism are only in their infancy. Black Fire closes this gap with a rich account of the untold story of African American Pentecostalism.

In ten lucid chapters, Alexander recounts Pentecostal retentions from African Spirituality, the legacy of the nineteenth-century Black Holiness Movement, the impact of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street revival, the rise of African American trinitarian Pentecostal denominations, development of Black Oneness Pentecostalism, the presence of Black Pentecostals in predominantly white denominations, women’s leadership in African American churches, African American Neo-Pentecostals and Charismatic Movements, and the theological challenges of African American Pentecostalism. Two bibliographies of historical and contemporary sources complete the work.

While first impression might suggest that Black Fire is a historical work, Alexander’s study blends historical presentation with theological arguments. Never dispassionate in her writings, she has recently produced a number of works on African American Pentecostals, including a focus on Afro-Pentecostalism, in general, and women leaders in African American Pentecostalism, in particular, that confront the lack of attention given to African American Pentecostalism. At the core of Black Fire are the twin concerns of gender and race that characterize North American Pentecostal denominations. Interrogating the racial divide and gender paradox that affected the formation and ongoing development of African American Pentecostalism, Alexander explores the racist attitudes of black and white Pentecostals and attempts to repair the damaged relations. Similarly, the challenges of sexism and the suppression of women in positions of leadership are confronted in various accounts of black, Holiness, women evangelists, women as denominational leaders and organizational innovators woven throughout the historical and theological discussions. The black Pentecostal consciousness Alexander endeavors to instill is egalitarian and ecumenical, not without self-criticism, and always protecting the genuine validity of the variety of voices emerging from Pentecostals.

The book does not offer a continuous story, as one might expect, of one hundred years of African American Pentecostalism. Each chapter stands on its own, with some inevitable connections emerging from the historical and theological voices. This choice has its advantages, since the reader can follow the development selectively and with emphasis on the key themes of the century. Each chapter carries its own inherent argument, connected by the interwoven theme of African spirituality, Africanisms, and African American characteristics that influenced theological, practical, political, organizational, and denominational choices. The disadvantage of this approach is mostly evident on the macro-level historiography and felt most likely by those who look for a standard account of a century of Pentecostal history. Here, the reader will not be able to find quick references to events and figures or other historical markers without engaging the text itself. The name and subject indexes are surprisingly short and offer less direction than most historians desire. Alexander’s strengths are in the thematic presentation and analysis as well as the theological observations throughout the book.

In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach, authored by Vern Sheridan Poythress, intends to articulate a Christian understanding of language and demonstrate how language reflects God’s character (9).

In the Beginning is organized into six parts. The first part addresses the relationship between God and language. Here Poythress states that language reveals the divine attributes. For example, the beauty of God is revealed in language because it allows for beauty in communication such as through the medium of poetry (75).

In part one, Poythress also notes the significance of the existence of language prior to creation, emphasizing it was not created, nor did it evolve (25–28). Language existed eternally and was a part of God’s being. People have language because it is part of being created in the image of God—it is not a human construct or cultural phenomenon as is often argued (29–30). Language is a gift of God through which God himself can speak.

Part two of the book discusses language in the context of history. Some of the topics covered in this section include the implications of the fall on language. People often use language to deceive and manipulate others (103). From a biblical perspective, Poythress also looks at the diversity of languages among the many cultures of the world.

Part three is about discourse. Here Poythress acknowledges the imprecision that is present in communication and the variation in the meaning of words and sentences (169). However, the author asserts that the existence of impreciseness does not negate the stability of language and our ability to communicate with others with some level of effectiveness. Poythress also includes in this portion of the text a discussion on biblical interpretation. He offers some principles for biblical Interpretations such as using the clear parts of Scripture to interpret the unclear ones (182). He also allows for some level of creativity in adducing meaning if that meaning is not in tension with other clear passages of the Bible.

Part four is about stories. The author discusses the value of biblical narratives, to communicate God’s work of redemption, even noting that myths are mini-stories of God’s work of redemption. Part five of the work analyzes the smaller units of language, sentences and words. For Poythress, even the smaller units of language are derived from God (256).

Part six addresses application. Poythress concludes this section of the book by moving beyond the study of language to discussing its relevance for living. God requires truthfulness and moral responsibility in a person’s use of language. The author stresses that moral standards with respect to language need to be embraced; otherwise, communication would be useless and untrustworthy. The book concludes with many appendices engaging various modern and postmodern concerns related to philosophy of language, including speech-act theory and deconstruction.

The primary weakness of In the Beginning is the topics it does not address in relation to language and speech. First, Poythress discusses phonemes, which would have been an opportunity for the author to address the sound-meaning relationship associated with words. However, this area of study is not even mentioned. Second, the author emphasizes the role of the Spirit as both “hearer” of the divine message and as the “breath,” thereby serving as carrier of the message to recipients. Here would have been an occasion to deal with the neglected study of how the Spirit takes the ancient sacred text and generates its meaningfulness for the present day reader. This topic is only briefly mentioned (22).